Hello there folks. Well today is high heat in the desert and I really don’t like it. As I have mentioned before in this column you have to nut it out until a better situation comes along. We are awaiting a work transfer and thought we would not have to spend another summer of high heat. So food in this weather tends to be fast and furious and cooked mostly in the early mornings and wherever possible cooked and made ready for easy reheating later on. The microwave gets a good workout. So today’s cooking involves the microwave.
“Simple Cooking Section.”
Today’s recipe with eggs is a really simple meatless frittata ring, done in the microwave. Its base is eggs and it is cooked in a microwave ring pan. Here are the ingredients:
4 to 5 eggs – beaten with ¼ cup milk and add a little black pepper or fajita seasoning
½ packet frozen spinach – cooked with a little margarine or butter, for a few minutes
3 medium potatoes – baked and diced
2 medium carrots – grated½ cup parsley – chopped
Cream cheese – little bits
Using the ring pan (which has been greased) put the ingredients in the pan, in the following order: spinach, parsley on top of spinach, diced potatoes, grated carrot, milk & egg mix and lastly, dot with the small pieces of cheese. Cook in the microwave for about 8 to 10 minutes until set. This should serve 2 to 4 people depending on the size of the servings. It is nice with a green salad.
Don’t be afraid to try this if you are learning to cook. It is really easy to do. If you are trying it for the first time, let me know what you think. Experiment with the seasonings and cheese.
Brown Rice & Chicken Salad
This is a very simple recipe that came out of a need to make something in a hurry. I have taken to using brown rice quite a lot lately. I still use white rice for this and that, but I do feel that brown rice is better for you. It takes longer to cook but is worth it in the end, for its goodness and vitamins and nutty flavour.
Into a microwave proof bowl put the following: 1 to 1 ½ cups brown rice, 6 drumsticks, 3 to 6 cloves garlic cut in half (this is optional), 1 cup parsley (chopped), 1 tablespoon margarine or butter. Cover with broth (or seasoned water) and cook until rice and drumsticks are soft and the chicken is no longer pink – about 40 minutes. Remove drumsticks and take meat off. Put chicken meat back into the rice mix and cook for a further 5 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Add 2 tablespoons nonfat ranch dressing and chill for several hours. This is delicious and is nice served on a bed of shredded lettuce (of choice).
SOMETHING TO NOTE:
If you have bread that is looking a little dismal then here are a couple of things to do with it. Roll out the slices with a rolling pin and cut into 4 squares. Cook in the microwave until crisp. Watch them carefully so that they don’t burn. They make excellent instant crackers and are great with a little garlic butter spread on them to serve as a side dish to a salad. Dismal bread also makes great breadcrumbs – without rolling them out just put the bread into the microwave and cook until crisp and then put the crisped bread back into the bread bag and roll it out with the rolling pin and put the crumbs into an airtight container and use them for a topping or they are excellent to thicken meat dishes if you don’t want to do the flour and water thing.
Well that’s it for this week. The column is slightly late – I don’t have any excuses except that it is too hot to think. Take care and go carefully out there.
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